Andrea Gini - MSS10

Andrea is now Editor-in-chief of the Space Safety Magazine, a magazine published by the International Association for Advancement in Space Safety (IAASS) and the International Space Safety Foundation (ISSF), which are both non profit organization promoting the safe and sustainable use of space.

In his role of Chairman of IAASS Information and Communication Committee, Andrea developed the magazine to promote the IAASS, the ISSF and their initiatives. Written by space safety specialists and by professional scientific journalists, the magazine targets the wider audience of those who have an interest, need or simply curiosity to know the current developments in the field of space safety and sustainability.

Started in July 2011, the Space Safety Magazine has evolved from a traditional document-based distribution to a printed magazine, complemented by a full-blown blog with daily updates on all the latest news and trends in the area of spaceflight safety.

"The space industry is expanding worldwide, thanks also to initiatives like the Google Lunar X-Prize," says Andrea, "Poor attention, lack of technical progress in the field, cumulative effects, and weak or non-existent international rules are some of the risks that the space industry is facing nowadays."

"Safety risk in space missions refers to the general public safety (on ground, on air and at sea), safety of launch range personnel, and safety of humans on-board," he adds, "Space safety is also generally defined in a wider sense as encompassing the safeguard of valuable facilities on ground (e.g. launch pads), of strategic and costly systems on orbit (i.e. global utilities), payloads as well as the safeguard of the space and Earth environment. Every space mission, including those promoted by the the private sector like the Google Lunar X-Prize, needs to take into account all these issues if they want to achieve the goal to lower the cost of access to space."